Autumnal Inspirations

By September, floral designer Sybil Sylvester has withstood the summer heat and is ready to forage for flowers, leaves, nuts, and berries to use in sumptuous fall arrangements.

Seasonal Masterpiece

This grouping would work from September to Thanksgiving. Use fall foliage along with berry-laden branches and seasonal fruits on the branch and mix them with fall flowers. For the large arrangement, I chose cattails, pomegranate branches, Chinese lantern, crabapples, ornamental peppers, olive branches, dill, pyracantha, and a lotus seedpod. The smaller arrangement contains zinnias, callas, millet, and red-dyed solidago. For a centerpiece, surround the arrangement with seasonal fruits and vegetables, such as artichokes, pomegranates, persimmons, sweet potatoes, onions, and acorn squash.

Cinnamon Sticks

The foundation for this arrangement was the container, which I made. I ran a strip of double-sided tape around a straight-sided container and covered the sides with aspidistra leaves. I then hot-glued cinnamon sticks to the outside. The result looks like a rustic fence. I filled the container with blocks of damp floral foam and began to add my material, working with one type of foliage at a time and then adding the various berries and pods. The medley of fall foliage, seed heads, pods, and berries is so textural that it is almost like a tapestry.

Feather Duster

Lush and autumnal, this arrangement started with feathers from a crafts store. I separated them into small clusters that I wired together. To complement the dark brown container, I chose the darkest foliage of the smoke tree and then paired pods from the centers of coneflowers with preserved beech foliage; a dried, preserved grass called phalaris; and chocolate cosmos. The final touch was the feather clusters.

Deep Purple

Instead of rust and gold, these plum-toned arrangements explore another side of fall.